Marian urged a hesitating objection.
'But, under the circumstances, wasn't it in the author's power to make friends? Was money really indispensable?'
'Why, yes--because he chose to marry. As a bachelor he might possibly have got into the right circles, though his character would in any case have made it difficult for him to curry favour.
But as a married man, without means, the situation was hopeless.
Once married you must live up to the standard of the society you frequent; you can't be entertained without entertaining in return. Now if his wife had brought him only a couple of thousand pounds all might have been well. I should have advised him, in sober seriousness, to live for two years at the rate of a thousand a year. At the end of that time he would have been earning enough to continue at pretty much the same rate of expenditure.'
'Perhaps.'
'Well, I ought rather to say that the average man of letters would be able to do that. As for Reardon--'
He stopped. The name had escaped him unawares.
'Reardon?' said Marian, looking up. 'You are speaking of him?'
'I have betrayed myself Miss Yule.'
'But what does it matter? You have only spoken in his favour.'
'I feared the name might affect you disagreeably.'
Marian delayed her reply.
'It is true,' she said, 'we are not on friendly terms with my cousin's family. I have never met Mr Reardon. But I shouldn't like you to think that the mention of his name is disagreeable to me.'
'It made me slightly uncomfortable yesterday--the fact that I am well acquainted with Mrs Edmund Yule, and that Reardon is my friend. Yet I didn't see why that should prevent my making your father's acquaintance.'
'Surely not. I shall say nothing about it; I mean, as you uttered the name unintentionally.'
There was a pause in the dialogue. They had been speaking almost confidentially, and Marian seemed to become suddenly aware of an oddness in the situation. She turned towards the uphill path, as if thinking of resuming her walk.
'You are tired of standing still,' said Jasper. 'May I walk back a part of the way with you?'
'Thank you; I shall be glad.'
They went on for a few minutes in silence.
'Have you published anything with your signature, Miss Yule?'
Jasper at length inquired.
'Nothing. I only help father a little.'
The silence that again followed was broken this time by Marian.
'When you chanced to mention Mr Reardon's name,' she said, with a diffident smile in which lay that suggestion of humour so delightful upon a woman's face, 'you were going to say something more about him?'
'Only that--' he broke off and laughed. 'Now, how boyish it was, wasn't it? I remember doing just the same thing once when I came home from school and had an exciting story to tell, with preservation of anonymities. Of course I blurted out a name in the first minute or two, to my father's great amusement. He told me that I hadn't the diplomatic character. I have been trying to acquire it ever since.
'But why?'
'It's one of the essentials of success in any kind of public life. And I mean to succeed, you know. I feel that I am one of the men who do succeed. But I beg your pardon; you asked me a question. Really, I was only going to say of Reardon what I had said before: that he hasn't the tact requisite for acquiring popularity.'
'Then I may hope that it isn't his marriage with my cousin which has proved a fatal misfortune?'
'In no case,' replied Milvain, averting his look, 'would he have used his advantages.'
'And now? Do you think he has but poor prospects?'
'I wish I could see any chance of his being estimated at his right value. It's very hard to say what is before him.'
'I knew my cousin Amy when we were children,' said Marian, presently. 'She gave promise of beauty.'
'Yes, she is beautiful.'
'And--the kind of woman to be of help to such a husband?'
'I hardly know how to answer, Miss Yule,' said Jasper, looking frankly at her. 'Perhaps I had better say that it's unfortunate they are poor.'
Marian cast down her eyes.
'To whom isn't it a misfortune?' pursued her companion. 'Poverty is the root of all social ills; its existence accounts even for the ills that arise from wealth. The poor man is a man labouring in fetters. I declare there is no word in our language which sounds so hideous to me as "Poverty."'
Shortly after this they came to the bridge over the railway line.
Jasper looked at his watch.
'Will you indulge me in a piece of childishness?' he said. 'In less than five minutes a London express goes by; I have often watched it here, and it amuses me. Would it weary you to wait?'
'I should like to,' she replied with a laugh.
The line ran along a deep cutting, from either side of which grew hazel bushes and a few larger trees. Leaning upon the parapet of the bridge, Jasper kept his eye in the westward direction, where the gleaming rails were visible for more than a mile. Suddenly he raised his finger.
'You hear?'
Marian had just caught the far-off sound of the train. She looked eagerly, and in a few moments saw it approaching. The front of the engine blackened nearer and nearer, coming on with dread force and speed. A blinding rush, and there burst against the bridge a great volley of sunlit steam. Milvain and his companion ran to the opposite parapet, but already the whole train had emerged, and in a few seconds it had disappeared round a sharp curve. The leafy branches that grew out over the line swayed violently backwards and forwards in the perturbed air.
'If I were ten years younger,' said Jasper, laughing, 'I should say that was jolly! It enspirits me. It makes me feel eager to go back and plunge into the fight again.'
'Upon me it has just the opposite effect,' fell from Marian, in very low tones.
'Oh, don't say that! Well, it only means that you haven't had enough holiday yet. I have been in the country more than a week;a few days more and I must be off. How long do you think of staying?'
'Not much more than a week, I think.'
'By-the-bye, you are coming to have tea with us to-morrow,'
Jasper remarked a propos of nothing. Then he returned to another subject that was in his thoughts.